Toys R Us sales woes may have been sign of what was to come

NEW YORK (AP) — Toys R Us, trying to reorganize under bankruptcy leading into the holiday season, was seeing overall sales fall and those at established locations drop even more sharply as it was heading for a Chapter 11 filing.

Weaker sales illustrated the difficulty the retailer was having amid more intense competition from businesses such as Amazon and Walmart that can offer lower prices. Toys R Us was already hamstrung by $5 billion in debt.

The toy retailer that also owns the Babies R Us chain says that for the three months ended July 29, sales fell to $1.46 billion from $1.56 billion. Even more telling was its same-store sales, a key indicator of a retailer's health. Those tumbled 6.4 percent in the quarter. A year earlier, those sales edged up 0.5 percent.